Found a retro-postpunk band that I probably like a bit more than Interpol & Hot Hot Heat & Franz Ferdinand, and that's Stellastarr*. I've only had a chance to listen to the album once, but I definitely connected with it more than any of those other acts--though I do have to go back & give Franz Ferdinand another chance. It's been a little tough, though, since I've been so into the Asylum Street Spankers & also Big Sandy & The Fly-Rite Boys just put out a best-of & I listened to that a couple of times also. I saw Big Sandy a decade ago & didn't realize at the time that they were an amazing facsimile of Bill Haley & The Comets, but I did know that I dug 'em...actually I'd known that for a couple of years at that point. Great great great rockabilly & Western Swing, and of course my preference is for something like that over 2nd gen postpunk.

The thing about Stellastarr*...their singer sorta sounds like Dave Vanian, and that's something you don't hear every day, and bits & pieces reminded me of the last Grandaddy album, except I definitely liked this better. Also I liked the Snow Patrol album Final Straw, an Israeli rock band called Rockfour, and a singer-songwriter named Mark Lane. A hit & a miss from Six Degrees--The Outernationalists was pretty funky, if a bit dance-oriented for me personally, but Electric Gypsyland, DJ reworkings of Balkan music, just didn't ring my bell. I still totally dig the label, though, and I'll take their misses because when they hit, it brings electronica to me in a way I just don't get from most anyone else--namely, well-fused with world music. Oh, there was also a dance/electronica album (not on Six Degrees) that I thought was kinda cool--Horse Noodles. Definitely house-y, but with jazzy samples & enough interesting stuff to keep it from being in the techno/trance realm that I'm just not interested in--or acid jazz, for that matter, which I don't like, either. Considering it's not downtempo, I'd have to say it's the closest thing to house that I've heard that I actually liked. Well, I liked some of it, anyway.

Lastly, I finally had the chance to dig into Troy's Garageband sampler. I have to go back & look at the thread where everyone reviewed it; Troy didn't have my current address so I actually just got the thing a week or two ago. My impression is that Troy can make spacey prog stuff as well as anyone else, but I'm not a fan of that genre nor am I particularly knowledgeable about it & don't pretend to be. But some of the stuff that didn't sound Zappa-esque to me sounded much like some chillout recs I've heard. I see no reason why Troy couldn't immediately jump into putting together chillout recs, seriously & for real. But while that's probably not his first intention or desire...I do know what he was getting at, and it's probably as great a program for people who play instruments as for people who don't. As someone who does play an instrument, I always liked messing around with the four-track. I haven't touched it since I got sick, but I still do have Mike 'Sport' Murphy's ancient Tascam locked away in my office; I did some groovy things with that back in the day. With that, you can do cool stuff; with Garageband, I would imagine, the possibilities are pretty much limitless. I like the restrictions that a 4-track offers, partially because I think that music that you make with one of those is in some way more organic. But there are tons of people out there with good ideas that don't necessarily know how to play an instrument, and I think we're in an age where being a musician doesn't have to be a prerequisite to making good, or at least interesting, music (not in the manner of composers of standards; just to say that I don't think that samplers, DJs, & programmers are somehow 'not' music). While most of what's on the thing is obviously representative of what Troy's into, much of which is not my cup of tea, this comp is living proof of that.